United coach full of praise after comprehensive win

SHOALHAVEN United coach Trevor Skingle is very happy with the direction his team is heading, after they picked up a 5-2 win against Huskisson at Lyrebird Park on Saturday.

Although Huskisson did take an early lead when Jake Malligan scored in the 17th minute, it was not long before United took complete control.

Taite Arney scored an equaliser in the 27th minute and the home side then took the lead just minutes later when Dean Atkinson scored their second.

A penalty to Matt Lewis shortly before the break gave the home side a comfortable 3-1 lead at half-time.

Their lead stretched to 5-1 early in the second half when Kris Brant scored, before Arney netted his second goal of the afternoon.

Skingle said he felt like the floodgates were going to open after that and while several more opportunities came up, they did not add to their tally before full time.

The only other goal came late in the piece when Brendan Hobbs scored a consolation goal for Husky.

Skingle said he was very happy with the result and felt they could have easily won by a lot more.

“I think when you get away, you probably don’t concentrate as much, which is why we weren’t putting away our chances, but I can’t complain,” he said.

“It’s good to see things we’re doing at training are working in games,” he added.

Skingle said he thought Husky were one of the tougher teams they had played during the first two rounds, but were not as strong as they have been previously.

“They’ve been a bit of a bogey side for us in previous years, but I’d say it was a pretty comfortable win.

“Even when we went 1-nil down, I never thought we looked like losing.

“But credit where it’s due, they showed a lot of guts, they never gave up and managed to get another goal there at the end.”

Husky coach Ian Osterloh thought his side played some nice football at times, but lacked consistency and fitness.

“In the first 20-25 minutes I thought we played some half decent football, but as the game went on we just had too many unfit players,” he said.

“We’ve got quite a young squad and with the school holidays, we had about half a dozen guys who hadn’t played or trained in two weeks and it really showed.

“I think we started with enough enthusiasm, but by the second half most of the guys were walking.

“Basically the fitness was really poor.”

Skingle said it has become a bit of a running joke that he still manages to criticise his players even after a convincing win, but this week he had only good things to say about their performance.

The 16-year-old Zac Gordon made his first grade debut for United and Skingle said he would have been his vote for man of the match, due to putting in such a strong performance in his first game, but otherwise thought it would be unfair to single any players out.

Sam Boardman, Jake Malligan and Alex Boardman were named by Osterloh as the best players for Husky.